Victoria Jelinek

The manifestation of all of the rotten elements of US society that have been growing over the last 50 or so years is terribly overwhelming and heart-wrenching.

The FCC ruling today is a big blow to its last semblance of democracy (and its cut to subsidies for the poor to have internet access is simply mean). The looming tax cuts for the very wealthy, including write-offs for private jets and other corporate expenditures, as well as inheritance tax avoidance is blatant avarice. Meanwhile, teachers, fire fighters, police officers lose itemized deductions, and the opportunity to own a home, put their children through university, and to receive healthcare without a lifetime of debt. The hypocrisy of the Trump regime regarding sexual assault is sickening, as is the public’s preoccupation with it in the face of the larger atrocities being committed daily by this administration while the public’s attention is averted. Those who are excessively wealthy and who run the government must be laughing at the stupidity of ordinary people. In a complex and insidious way, we are all complicit in what has happened.

However, all of the aforementioned doesn’t matter in the long-run if there are no more forests, or natural lands, or safe drinking water, or the air can’t be safely breathed. Nor does any of it matter when wildlife has been eradicated. The Trump regime had already lifted a ban on the hunting of wolves and bears (and their young), made deals with oil companies to build pipelines & drill for oil in protected territories to undermine the welfare of our planet, its animals and ourselves. Only today a pipeline spilled hundreds of thousands of oil in South Dakota and a steel corporation was discovered dumping tons of toxins into Lake Michigan.

And if this wasn’t enough, the Trump regime reversed legislation that protected elephants and lions in Africa. Today, the wealthy donors to this administration received some ‘payback’ because they can now ‘hunt’ down these animals and bring “trophies” in the form of their body parts back to the US in order to display and, ostensibly, impress guests (?!). Let that sink in – the body parts of a lion or an elephant as a ‘trophy’ to be mounted somewhere in their house. Imagine how these elephant’s babies will feel when some soul-less white man fells their mother or father or brother or sister. They will suffer fear and loss. They will grieve. They are sympathetic, smart, wise, and loving creatures that are family-oriented. They mourn for those members who die, and they remember them long after they are shot, dismembered, and carried back on an airplane by a savage.

***Addendum: Trump says the elephant ban is “on hold.” Outrage, thank goodness, must have been enough. However, this administration will ‘slip it in’ when no one’s looking, so to speak. Also, this still leaves the issue of lions as trophies & wolves being hunted down in their dens…